Social media can no longer be ignored. They are unarguably a great way to gather customer feedback. What your consumer are saying about you online form a great pool of ideas to improve your business. Hence, the importance of monitoring the conversation that are happening around your Brand.
But another important piece is the fact that everything you can see, your competitors can see as well. In fact, these are public discussions that anyone can track and monitor. What does this mean? As a Brand, you must spot the need, and be the first to fix it. Otherwise, the entire world is watching to take that opportunity.
A recent example is “Fancy” which Ali raved about in her blog. Pinterest caught everyone’s attention early last year. However, since its beginning, users had often had the issue of not being able to find an item that they desperately desire sold anywhere. We all know or have heard of someone speeding through the retail stores trying to find that “thing I saw on Pinterest”.
“Fancy” took this opportunity and created an entire businesses model. I have not yet become a regular user of this site, but from what I gathered so far. It is a lot like Pinterest minus the things that people keep on complaining. They allow users to mek immediate purchase on anything they see on the site. They also look a lot more like Tumblr than a pin board which some have complained that it was too overwhelming.
The future of “Fancy” is yet to be determined. I am excited to see how loyal the Pinterest customers are.